In a typical baking process applicable to cakes. biscuits, or cookies, a pre-blended dough or mix is loaded into a hopper and is extruded through a transverse array of dies at the underside of the hopper. The hopper houses a pair of counter-rotating rollers which are rotated at periodic intervals, whereby the mix is forced simultaneously through each of the dies. During each operating cycle, when a predetermined amount of mix has been extruded through the dies, a reciprocating wire cutter severs the extruded mix from that remaining in the dies. The severed portions (i.e., deposits) of the mix then fall onto a conveyor which passes below the dies and the conveyor transports the deposits, arrayed in rows and columns, through a baking oven. The conveyor typically comprises a series of baking trays which extend transversely between and are carried by two parallel endless conveyor chains.
The above described process yields more-or-less acceptable results when the food mix has a smooth dough-like consistency. However, when the mix contains additives in the form of fruit, nuts, bran, shredded coconut or the like, it has been found that the wire cutter does not make a clean cut through the extruded material. This results in the formation of non-uniform deposits on the conveyor and, because some of the deposits tend to stick to the wire cutter or resist its cutting action, the deposits in a given row may be randomly staggered across the width of the conveyor. This creates problems at the product removal station, after the deposits have passed through the baking oven, and it may even result in some of the mix deposits falling through the gap between adjacent trays.
In an alternative deposition process, a number of pistons is employed in lieu of the reciprocating wire cutter for pushing quantities of the food mix through an array of dies and in a direction toward a conveyor. However, this process does not solve the above problem because the mix tends to stick to the underside of the pistons and, with different constituents in the mix at the underside of the respective pistons, the deposits drop onto the conveyor at different time intervals. Therefore, here gain, the deposits forming a given row across the conveyor may be randomly staggered.